‘Bad News for the South’: State Supreme Court Upholds 6-Week Abortion Ban in South Carolina – By Julia Conley (Common Dreams) / Aug 23, 2023
“The result will essentially force an untold number of affected women to give birth without their consent,” wrote Justice Donald Beatty in his dissent. “I am hard-pressed to think of a greater governmental intrusion by a political body.”
Despite a recent poll showing that just 37% of South Carolinians backed a six-week abortion ban, the state Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated the previously blocked law, gutting what remained of abortion access for millions of people across the South.
The ruling was handed down by the all-male high court following the mandatory retirement of former Justice Kaye Hearn, who wrote the majority opinion in another ruling in January which struck down a nearly identical six-week ban that had been passed in 2021.
The state Legislature appointed Judge Gary Hill to replace Hearn after two women who were running for the seat dropped out. State Sen. Sandy Senn (R-41) accused House Republicans of forcing Judges Stephanie McDonald and Aphrodite Konduros out of the race by holding informal polls that showed they were behind Hill. South Carolina now has the only all-male state Supreme Court in the United States.
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